


Strawberry Wine

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, But Rhodey makes sure he doesn't do a dumb, Fluff and Crack, I Don't Even Know, Open Marriage, Open Relationships, Protective Rhodey, Random & Short, Self-Indulgent, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, underage is tagged more to be cautious, weird timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:25:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Bucky lean on either side of his locker with wide grins, looking ready to tag team him with some line of questioning he was bound to not like. “So,” Sam says.</p><p>“We hear you’ve gotten yourself a college boyfriend,” Bucky says, completing Sam’s sentence. </p><p>“Care to fill us in?” Sam continues, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. </p><p>Rhodey rolls his eyes at them, “it is not as badass as you two probably think it is,” he says. First off Tony was <em>younger</em> than him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strawberry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> This is named after Diana Cater's Strawberry Wine but has no connection to the fic itself, this was just what i listened to when I was posting this and I liked it.
> 
> Now, there is no underage stuff with Tony/ Rhodey but there's a lot of implications of underage sex so I tagged it that way as a precaution. Aside from that there's some judgement of open relationships, a mention of child abuse, and a sliiightly weird age difference (when they're younger) but I think that's it for warnings. If not let me know and I'll add them in! Also there's some minor Sam/Steve/Bucky.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy :)

Sam and Bucky lean on either side of his locker with wide grins, looking ready to tag team him with some line of questioning he was bound to not like. “So,” Sam says.

“We hear you’ve gotten yourself a college boyfriend,” Bucky says, completing Sam’s sentence.

“Care to fill us in?” Sam continues, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Rhodey rolls his eyes at them, “it is not as badass as you two probably think it is,” he says. First off Tony was _younger_ than him by three years, which he would normally find really weird and a little creepy given his own age but Tony was different. He knew he sounded like a bad cliché that was bound to spend time in prison but it wasn’t like he was sleeping with Tony. He could suffer until he was eighteen because Rhodey was not about to have his racist homophobe father lay charges against him out of spite. He had a future and he wasn’t going to let _sex_ ruin it. Besides, he told Tony that he didn’t really care whom he slept with anyways and he didn’t. Tony had tested it out once to see if Rhodey really didn’t care whom he slept with only to be vastly underwhelmed with Rhodey’s ‘make good choices’ response.

“Explain Rhodes, and explain why the hell we found this out from some dweeb in the hallway ten minutes ago,” Bucky says. He closes his locker door, books in hand, only to find Sam and Bucky following him.

“Don’t you two have class?” he asks, raising an eyebrow in what he would assume was an obvious hint to bugger off.

“Yeah, all three of us have math,” Sam and Bucky say in sync.

“You two share a brain and it’s weird, almost more weird than the fact that you share a brain with Steve too,” he says, walking faster. Of course they both keep up easily, the curse of having friends with legs as long as yours. He probably would have escaped their questions eventually but when they round the corner they find Steve standing there looking like five feet or righteous blonde fury with his hands on his hips.

“And _when_ were you going to tell us you’re dating some dipshit in college? College guys who date high school students are creeps, Rhodey, run,” Steve says bluntly. Rhodey sighs and accepts his fate; his friends weren’t going to let up any time soon.

“That’s nice Steve, but if anyone is the creep in this situation I think it’d be me,” he says, earning a confused look from all three of his friends. “He’s a genius so his being in college at fifteen is more of an exception than a rule and stop looking at me like that, I know it’s little weird-”

“Try creepy, you’re an adult,” Steve says, squinting at him judgmentally.

“Which is why I’m careful about what I do. And I know this sounds like a bad cliché- stop looking at me like that Steve- but he’s genuinely mature for his age. I mean he’s doing a Master’s degree, he graduated from MIT last year, you don’t really go through that much life experience and not mature at least a little. Sometimes I’m pretty sure he’s more mature than I am,” he says honestly. Not that he was unaware that the age difference, at least at this age, was a little weird. He wasn’t an idiot, he remembered when he was fifteen and thought he knew everything, only Tony was fifteen and actually did know next to everything and that made him too cocky for his own good. So Rhodey made sure to be the mature one when Tony was being irresponsible. Unfortunately he had an irresponsible streak a mile wide and insisted on making nutty impulsive decisions. That was all part of the charm for Rhodey though, he loved that Tony was so… bright and free spirited, even if he had to convince him not to get a tattoo twice a week.

“Mhmm, sure,” Steve says, judging face on. Rhodey resists the urge to roll his eyes because he actually liked Steve when he wasn’t being a sanctimonious ass.

“Aww come on, this is _James Rhodes_ , he’s practically a middle aged adult as far as responsibility goes. If he says this tiny tot boyfriend of his is mature he’s probably not immature,” Bucky says, snickering at the look on Rhodey’s face.

“Never _ever_ refer to Tony as a tiny tot ever again, _please_ ,” he says, making a face. Steve’s still got his judgmental face on but he at least keeps quiet, meaning that he was contemplating the possibility that Rhodey was not a creep and he was thankful for that. Sam also remains suspiciously silent but Rhodey figures he’s assessing things and he’d get an opinion later.

*

Tony is spread out on his bed looking at him with what he probably thinks is a saucy expression, but he looks more like he’s trying too hard. “You’re good at math, right? Mind helping a guy out?” he asks and Tony wrinkles his nose at him.

“Seriously, _math_?” he asks.

“Yeah, _math_. You might be done high school and a Bachelor’s degree but I am not so lucky so help me out, genius,” he says, grinning. Tony lets out a prolonged groan but he slips off Rhodey’s bed and wanders over to his desk, dropping into his lap and grinning like he thought this was going to get him somewhere. Rhodey gives him an unimpressed look and gestures to his math homework. Tony sighs dramatically but turns so he could look at the work.

“Trig? This is so _easy_ , what are you not getting?” he asks, eyes scanning the work for a moment before he picked up Rhodey’s eraser and erased half the answers he _had_ figured out. Rhodey groans, dropping his head onto Tony’s narrow shoulder because this was awful, he hated math. Sadly engineering was a lot of math so he needed to know these things in order to build things.

“Honestly I am so lost I don’t even understand what I don’t understand,” Rhodey says honestly. It wasn’t he was bad at math; he was actually pretty good at it provided the teacher actually knew how to explain the material. His current teacher was drier than the Sahara desert so a good explanation of what the fuck he was doing was just as scarce and barren as his brain cells in that class. Tony, thankfully, takes this as a challenge and begins a long-winded explanation that was actually shockingly helpful. He still screws up half his answers, though, and Tony finds it amusing.

“You’re gunna get that one wrong,” Tony warns as he tries to figure out his second last problem.

“I literally wrote down one line man, how the hell can you predict my answers?” he asks. Why was he dating a genius again? Right, because he was currently helping him pass the math class that was his current barrier to college and engineering.

“Genius,” Tony says with a wide smile, tapping the side of his head, “and also you’re redoing the question above the one you’re supposed to be doing.” Rhodey looks at the paper and realizes that Tony was right and sighs, restarting the question while Tony dictates whether or not he’s headed in the right direction. When he finally, mercifully, finishes his homework Tony wiggles himself around so he’s straddling Rhodey’s lap, “so now that you’re done you’re math homework what are you gunna do?” he asks, probably trying for coy and failing.

Rhodey grins, leaning in close to Tony and watching as his pupils dilate and he licks his lips. He slides his hands under Tony’s thighs and lifts him easily, smiling wider as Tony’s ankles hook behind his back and his arms tighten around his neck. “I approve,” Tony says, leaning his forehead against Rhodey’s. He walks them over to his bed and dumps Tony unceremoniously on the mattress, laughing at the undignified squawk Tony lets out, “I have stopped approving,” he says, scrambling off the bed to follow Rhodey out of the room.

“Well the state doesn’t approve of underage sex either, so I guess we all disappointed,” he says. Tony looks hilariously offended at that and launches into a whole rant as to why he found that law stupid and Rhodey had to admit he was impressed, but he wasn’t convinced.

“We have an open relationship, go get your rocks off elsewhere,” Rhodey says, handing him a bottle of water knowing Tony probably forgot to hydrate today. Unless it was coffee, he was fairly certain Tony’s blood stream was now at least half coffee and that couldn’t be healthy.

Tony pouts, wrapping his arms around Rhodey’s waist and leaning into him, “but it isn’t you so it’s not the same,” Tony says in a petulant tone that wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

“Good,” Rhodey says, tipping his head up and placing a gentle kiss on his lips, “means you’ll come back later.” Not that he’d ever doubt that Tony would. He might be surrounded by people all the time but no one really knew him if the way they treated him was any indication. That, and everyone, his parents included, liked to forget how young he was and that he sometimes needed guidance. He was tempted to introduce Tony to Steve because Steve would automatically take him under his wing but the flip side to that was that they would loath each other so he left it for now.

“‘Course I’ll come back, you cook for me,” Tony says, grinning.

“Uh huh, sure, you love me for my jambalaya and not my good looks and charm.” To be fair he actually was a very good cook, someone had to save him from his mother’s cooking and his father had off and died in war. Besides, his ma worked two jobs, she didn’t have time to learn how not to burn water when she tried to make pasta.

“I like you because you actually make an effort to talk to me and listen instead of just hearing whatever it is you want to. But the jambalaya helps,” he says, throwing out a joke to cover his real feelings just like always. Rhodey lets him get away with it because sharing feelings was not Tony’s strong suit and he wasn’t going to scare him away from sharing by teasing him about it.

*

Sam, Bucky, and Steve share the same look of suspicion and he waits them out, knowing that Steve at the very least will voice his opinions. “Does that not… bother you?” Bucky finally asks, looking over to Tony flirting with some girl who at least looked his age.

“No? Is it supposed to?” he asks, fully prepared to challenge what his friends thought a relationship should look like. Steve would probably be the most receptive to a new view, followed closely by Bucky and Sam, but right now the three had their judging faces on.

“Uh, yeah?” Steve says, frowning. “You’re not supposed to flirt when you’re dating someone.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care. Flirting, sex, whatever, all that stuff is superficial and I’ve never really seen a reason for me to care about it,” he says, shrugging like this was an every day normal view. He knew it wasn’t, most people thought of sex as something important and sacred and that was fine but it didn’t really work for him, never had. Sex was great sure, but he knew it didn’t really make much of a relationship; he’s had a few trial run relationships that crashed because they were pretty much only physical. In hindsight he should have just left it at that instead of trying to force sexual chemistry into romantic chemistry, that would have been easier and a lot more fun. Tony, surprisingly, held a similar view but he thought of a lot of things differently due to his genius. Sometimes he’d talk about things that Rhodey hadn’t even considered until Tony shattered them. Social niceties were Tony’s favorite thing to tear down.

“But… but…” Bucky sputters, waving a hand around in frustration.

“It isn’t a problem,” Rhodey says because it wasn’t. When Tony called one of his one-night stands at three a.m. crying because his asshole father got drunk and went off on him again for no reason _then_ maybe he’d start getting jealous. But until they could identify how to tell if Tony’s smile was fake, or which tones he used when he was trying to hide his feelings, or how to walk the fine line between comforting Tony and pitying him than he wasn’t worried. And figuring all that out required him to open up and that had been hard enough for Rhodey to get him to do let alone anyone else. It had been chance that they ran into each other at that tiny music store, and more of a coincidence when they kept running into each other. Granted Rhodey had assumed Tony was a lot older when he said he was in college, he figured maybe he just looked young or something because he sure as hell didn’t _act_ fifteen. He found out why later on though and he felt bad for Tony, it must be hard to be forced to grow up so fast.

Tony wanders back over with Rhodey’s coffee, thank god, and sits next to him, curling into his side. He wraps his arm around Tony and kisses the top of his head, ignoring the scandalized looks on his friends’ faces. “Problem?” Tony asks after a moment of awkward silence, eyebrow raised in defiance more than anything. Rhodey sighs and accepts that Tony was going to be Tony.

For a moment no one says anything but Steve finally braves it, ever the bravest of them all, and leans forward. “Don’t you think it’s rude to like… flirt or whatever that was in front of Rhodey?” he asks, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Nope,” Tony says, popping the ‘p’ intentionally.

Steve looks a mix between shocked and offended, “well I do,” he says, giving Tony the stink eye.

“Well good for you, Rhodey doesn’t, we’ve had this discussion so what you think is irrelevant,” Tony says bluntly. That discussion had also lead to Tony whining and crying about no one else caring about his age and Rhodey pointing out that that was creepy, and that adults that were willing to sleep with fifteen year olds needed to be barred from sex and relationships forever. Tony vehemently disagreed but that was mostly because he wanted in Rhodey’s pants. Rhodey resisted obviously, because sleeping with Tony would be more irresponsible than dating him and _someone_ had to worry about Tony here. When Tony asked why he didn’t care if he slept with someone else who was eighteen or older Rhodey told him that he did, but he couldn’t control Tony’s actions nor could he control whomever he was sleeping with and he wasn’t going to try. He could, however, control his own and so he would.

“Yeah but couldn’t you do that like… elsewhere?” Bucky asks, giving Tony a look of distaste. Rhodey rolls his eyes but Tony looked ready to handle this so he lets him.

“Why? So we can all pretend mine and Rhodey’s relationship follows ‘normal’ patterns instead of just confronting it head on? That’s stupid; the key to any relationship is communication if online dating tips are to be trusted, so pretending our relationship is ‘normal’, whatever that looks like, because it makes people more comfortable is useless.” Tony finishes his small rant with a pleasant smile, looking proud of himself.

“And besides, it goes both ways, I could do the same thing if I wanted,” Rhodey points out. He didn’t because he didn’t have much of an interest or many options but if he wanted to sleep with someone he could and Tony wouldn’t care. Actually Tony spent the entire previous week harassing Rhodey to go sleep with someone because he felt bad for indulging in their agreement more. Rhodey had assured him that it wasn’t a problem and came to the conclusion that if they didn’t have an open relationship there was no way he could keep up with Tony’s freakishly high libido anyways. He was a man, not a machine.

His friends still give them sketchy looks but Tony plows on, content to both ignore the judging and call them on it when he thought they said something insulting about Rhodey.

*

“Your friends don’t like me much,” Tony says after the third time they had all hung out together. It was also the third time Tony had been glared at for three straight hours for doing… nothing really. He understood that his friends were worried about him, and maybe they didn’t appreciate Tony mentioning something about some stupidly hot redhead he slept with the other night but he seen pictures. That red head was stupidly hot and if Tony’s laughing over her texts were any indication she had an awesome personality too. That had been Steve’s point of contention, wasn’t he supposed to only sleep with his one-night stands?

But that wasn’t exactly the arrangement; Tony wasn’t supposed to get romantically invested in his one-night stands, and the same for him of course. So what if he ended up friends with someone he slept with? Tony was easy to read, there was no romantic chemistry between him and Natasha, Rhodey would have been able to tell. Tony just appreciated good memes and who was Rhodey to stop him? It wasn’t like he’s never ended up with someone he only ever had an interest in sleeping with once, that was literally how he and Bucky met, _and_ how him and Sam met. Which he pointed out too and he could _see_ Steve watching Tony for a reaction as if he expected him to get jealous or something. Tony had given Sam and Bucky an appreciative once over, nodded, and told Rhodey he had good taste and to get with the blonde to make it a set. Steve was horrified and Rhodey and Sam let out unintentional laughs that earned them glares from Steve and Bucky.

“They don’t dislike you, they just don’t understand you,” Rhodey says.

“That’s a nice way of saying they don’t like me,” Tony points out.

“Fine, have it your way. But they don’t dislike you, they don’t even know you, what they have a problem with is our relationship,” Rhodey says. It was a hot topic these days though a little less so since Steve told Rhodey not to fool himself into thinking he was being noble or something by not sleeping with Tony when he ‘let’ everyone else do it for him. Rhodey had snapped back that he didn’t ‘let’ Tony or his partners do anything because no one was his to control. Tony did what he wanted and so long as he was safe Rhodey didn’t care and neither should Steve. They all calmed down a little after that but they still gave Tony the side eye when they shouldn’t. Tony wasn’t the problem here, their misunderstanding of his and Tony’s relationship was.

“Then tell them to stop acting like their understanding of our relationship is what makes it valid instead of our understanding of our relationship,” Tony snaps, irritated. Rhodey blinks for a moment because the comment was surprisingly wise for a freshly sixteen year old. He slides into his bed, pulling Tony towards him and kissing him gently. Tony makes a pleased noise but pulls away, “oh, and tell them they totally have no right to judge weird relationships when they’re totally in a polyamorous relationship,” he says.

Rhodey frowns, “Tony, they aren’t in a ploy relationship. Sam and Bucky are dating but Steve is just a friend.”

Tony snorts, “bullshit. Fifty bucks says I’m right,” he says, grinning. Rhodey grins back and takes the bet, knowing he’s right. Tony is all bravado and cockiness about it though, telling Rhodey he was going to be owed fifty bucks as he climbed over Rhodey’s hips, weaving their fingers together and holding Rhodey’s hands over his head and kissing him with an unfair amount of skill.

*

When he decides to join the military Tony is righteously pissed and for the first time since they started dating he and his mother team up to convince him that this was a stupid idea. The benefit to this was that his ma stopped hating Tony because she finally got to know him; the downside was that he pissed off two people he cared about with a strategic career choice. Steve had commended him, Sam had also joined, and Bucky sulked the whole time about it.

With all the drama the last thing he expects of for Tony’s parents to up and die in a car accident, Howard had been drinking and lost control. Both of them died on impact. Tony told everyone at the funeral that Howard was a piece of shit and that he was glad he was dead, but he’d miss his mom with everything he had. The media and the funeral patrons chalked it up to shock but Tony meant his words, Rhodey could tell, and he could also tell that Tony didn’t want to mean them. He does his best to comfort Tony before he ends up shipped out to training but there was only too much he was able to do. He calls every night though and he lets his roommates think he’s talking to some girl back home to avoid the drama. Tony, thankfully, understands.

*

When Rhodey was a teenager he thought he knew everything and so did Tony, except that never changed in Tony's case. Too be fair he had the intelligence to back it up. The one thing they did know about, though, was that they would always stay together no matter what. Sure, there were rough patches, like when Tony started drinking too much after being kidnapped, and when the media outted their relationship and almost ruined Rhodey’s career. But they stayed together, always, and Tony had had fun telling the media to stick it when they judged them for their relationship agreement. The guys around base questioned it too, saying they never saw his relationship with Tony coming considering he slept with basically everyone. That was unfair, he didn’t sleep with _everyone_ , but Rhodey had rolled his eyes and went with it, telling them that Tony’s sex life had nothing to do wit romance. Besides, over the years he’s taken advantage of the arrangement too. It was convenient when he was away for a while and felt like a good lay.

Tony comes bounding over with the mail and a giant grin on his face so Rhodey sighs; turning to face whatever terrible idea Tony had come up with. He holds up a letter with a look that was far too gleeful to mean anything but trouble, “high school reunion,” he says enthusiastically.

“Uh, no, I am not going back to high school. I hated everyone because they were either racist or homophobes or some nasty ass hybrid of the two, why the hell would I go back?” he asks. The highlights to his high school days were Tony, and that was only senior year, and that one time he, Sam, and Bucky all ditched class to get high only to get chewed out by Steve for it later. Actually they were great- right up until he started dating Tony and then they got judge-y and weird. They never did understand how he and Tony worked, though in hindsight he should have gotten the side eye for dating a fifteen year old when he was eighteen. That was weird and a little bit off, though the age difference was nothing now.

“Because I can’t go to my high school reunions, I graduated when I was like seven. I’ve seen _so many_ movies about this, you have to indulge me,” Tony says, pouting in a way that he probably thought was sexy. It wasn’t, he looked more like a demented puppy but Rhodey loved him anyways so he sighs, earning a squeal of happiness from Tony. “I love you,” he says brightly, throwing himself into Rhodey’s arms.

“Love you too, baby, even if I want nothing to do with this stupid high school reunion,” he says, wrapping his hands around Tony’s waist.

“This is going to be excellent. And these things are basically a way to show off how successful you are and you’re a Colonel who’s married to a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. We’re like the _definition_ of success,” Tony says excitedly.

“Yeah, until everyone assumes we don’t actually love each other because we sleep with different people sometimes,” he mumbles. He was getting real tired of the _but how do you know he loves you_? comments. The same way you can tell someone doesn’t love you even if they’ve never slept with someone outside your marriage, you just _know_. As if monogamy was what held relationships together. Monogamy was fine, of course, but he could do without people who weren't interested in understanding his relationship insulting it.

“Sometimes at the same time,” Tony says, grinning, “speaking of, remember my eighteenth birthday? We should do that again. I should call Natasha, she’d be down, and she can bring Clint.” Tony goes on, of course getting ahead of himself but that was all part of the Stark charm. Plus Natasha was actually awesome, even if Rhodey was sometimes concerned with the level of sexual energy she created with Tony.

Her husband, Clint, didn’t seem to give a damn but Rhodey was fairly certain his soul mate was a Subway sandwich and Natasha had agreed. Besides, Natasha was part of Tony’s security team and therefore necessary to his life so Rhodey set his needless jealousy aside. They both knew their bounds and didn’t cross them, unless there was permission of course, which Tony was currently detailing explicitly. Rhodey was half tempted to call Pepper so she could listen in on this conversation but he figured she shouldn’t have to suffer. She already had enough of an earful from her husband, Happy, given that he had to deal with Tony and Natasha’s near constant flirting and shenanigans. Rhodey was just happy Natasha was there to make sure Tony didn’t off himself doing something stupid.

Finally Rhodey sighs, gently touching his fingers to Tony’s lips, “slow _down_ speed racer, we aren’t teenagers any more and back spasms are not sexy,” he points out.

“You can handle the military you can handle my sex life,” Tony counters and Rhodey pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You have do idea how many times I’ve wanted to send the newbies through you for a proper workout? But that’s probably illegal at worst or highly frowned upon at best so I leave it be. Point is you are more work than the military, seriously, people wonder how I stay so fit when I’m off for awhile and I spare them the details but I do tell them that you keep me very busy,” he says. The Tony Stark workout should be patented. Tony just grins at him with a bright smile that tells Rhodey that he’s up to something.

*

It’s been years since he’s seen his old high school and ideally he would have never seen it again but Tony was insistent and he loved his husband, even if he sometimes questioned his life choices. “Cheer up Rhodes, you have _so much_ to brag about. I mean last night alone is a tale-” Tony starts but Rhodey cuts him off.

“ _Please_ spare these people the details of our sex life,” he says and Tony snickers, lacing his fingers through Rhodey’s.

“Fine, fine, but our sex life is something to be jealous of,” Tony says. Rhodey shakes his head and rolls his eyes but he lets Tony have his fun, dragging him off to the gym to drink bad punch and listen to how shitty everyone’s lives were. The last thing he expects is to run into his old friends.

“James Rhodes?” Bucky asks, looking at him in surprise, “holy shit, I haven’t seen you since we hotboxed Sam’s car the day before you left.” Steve, who was a lot taller and muscled now- how the hell did _that_ happen- gives them both a look of disapproval.

“Some things never change, I guess,” he says, nodding to Steve’s Judge-y Face.

“What? It was our last hurrah before we all left to go live our lives. And _boy_ did you live life Rhodes, this one made sure there was never a dull moment, huh?” Bucky asks, nodding at Tony. He half expects the same judgment and irritation that Tony usually got from the three but they mostly look mildly curious now, even Steve, so he takes that as a good sign.

“Sure. My military career went well, is still going well actually, I love Tony, and we have a cat. It hates us both but we wouldn’t have it any other way,” he jokes. Princess, because Tony was _terrible_ at pet naming, was their third cat and she had been rescued from the side of the road by Tony two years before. Her eyes pointed in two different directions, her fur was perpetually matted, she had a bad case of snaggle tooth, and she hated the world but sometimes she’d sit with them and watch bad reality T.V so they loved her. Plus they had both agreed to no kids and they didn't have time for dogs, and Tony wasn't a dog person anyways. Rhodey didn't care either way but Tony had been so happy with cats that he went along with it.

Sam shakes his head, “man, I know you two were so sure about yourselves then and to be honest we all thought it would fall apart. I mean we were judgmental assholes then but I still wouldn’t have thought it would have worked out. High school relationships never do, but congratulations on making that work,” he says and he means it, Rhodey can tell.

“We worked out,” Steve points out and Rhodey can practically _feel_ Tony’s excitement.

“I _told_ you, you owe me fifty bucks!” he says and Rhodey frowns at him. “The bet we made, I _told_ you they were a threesome and you didn’t believe me! You owe me fifty bucks because I was _right_ ,” he says with enthusiasm.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Steve notes. Tony spares him an irritated glance that seems to confuse Steve but Tony is already looking back at Rhodey.

It takes him a second to remember that bet; Tony had been _sixteen_ for gods sakes. “I am not paying you for a bet you made with me when you were sixteen,” he says, giving him the stink eye.

“Cheapskate,” Tony accuses.

“Aren’t you a billionaire now?” Steve asks, squinting at him.

Tony sticks his nose in the air, “a bet is a bet,” he reasons.

“Will my debt be forgiven if I make you jambalaya?” he asks and Tony perks up.

“ _Hell_ yeah,” he says, grinning wide. Rhodey snickers, shaking his head at Tony’s antics. The conversation then turns to Sam, who’s military career got cut short when his partner on some project died. He now did a lot of work with mental health and veterans, which was how he re-met Steve, who somehow ended up hitting a very late growth spurt and gaining a shit ton of weight in muscle. His military career had gone fine but apparently he had PTSD something fierce and Bucky, who decided that maybe the military sucked, couldn’t handle it on his own. They ended up falling into the natural dynamic they had back in school, except this time it ended up being a relationship amongst the three of them instead of just Sam and Bucky.

Rhodey relays his own adventures, and Tony’s along with them, including the horribly eventful three months in which Tony got _kidnapped by terrorists_ and ended up an alcoholic. Sam looked like he wanted to say something but Tony presses on, relaying how he revamped SI and got over his alcohol addiction. Plus Rhodey got a promotion for managing to track down Tony, not that it was hard when that massive explosion went off. There were some things that screamed ‘Tony Stark’ and that was one of them. Then came the aftermath, and then came the media catching wind of their relationship and outing it, and then came the recovery. It had been a hard year and a half but they pulled through just like always. Steve even gives Tony a small congratulations on revamping SI.

Tony looks up at Rhodey and raises an eyebrow, “wow, even the sanctimonious one likes me now,” he says, looking impressed with himself.

“I guess I deserved that,” Steve mumbles. “For the record we sort of get it now, we get asked _so many_ stupid questions from people who have no idea what they’re talking about. Honestly I was tempted to look you up and ask how you dealt with all the judgment but then I remembered that I was one of the judge-y assholes so. Sorry about that,” he says. Bucky and Sam add their heads too, looking properly shamed.

“Ehh, we all do stupid shit. Right after my parents died I threw a huge party and drove a sports car into a pool so,” Tony shrugs.

“You did _what?_ ” Rhodey asks, giving Tony a _look_.

“I forgot you didn’t know about that,” Tony admits, sheepishly, looking at the ground.

Bucky snickers, “looks like someone’s in the dog house,” he says.

*

The reunion went as terribly as one could expect but Rhodey did get the pleasure of seeing his high school bully get dumped in front of everyone. He might have felt bad for the guy if it wasn’t for the string of insults that he called out after his would-be ex wife. Sam, Bucky, and Steve were great though and Rhodey forgot how much he liked spending time with them. Of course they were all different now, they were all more mature though Tony remained the same level of just a little weird that he’s always been. Steve had calmed down in the judgment department, thankfully, and Sam and Bucky had upped their game in insults. They had a great bicker game going and Steve was content to let them have at it, shaking his head as they fought over chips.

In the end they agree to keep in contact and Tony declares the night a success, mostly because he was right about being the most successful people there and he so loved an opportunity to show Rhodey off. Steve caught him at the end of the night and told him that he was lucky to have fond Tony. He pointed out that Tony’s successes were far greater than Rhodey’s but he didn’t spend a lot of time talking about them with anyone aside from Sam, Bucky, and him. Rhodey already knew he was lucky though, he had since day one, and he told Tony that every chance he got. Tony always told him that he was far luckier.


End file.
